The Hardest Part About Being a King
by Steeven Lee
Summary: "What if?" Is an interesting question, so let's ask that. "What if King Candy really did have Vanellope's best interests in mind?" What would that be like? Well, let's find out. This is an alternate universe in which King Candy's actions spring from compassion rather than greed, and nothing is quite what it seems to be at first... Well, you've been warned.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: I'm snowed in, and it doesn't look like it's letting up. Naturally, I'm bored, so this weather gives me time to write a short four-or-five-chapter story. There are several things intentionally different from the movie in this story, so reader beware: This is an alternate version of the Wreck-it-Ralph universe.**

* * *

With one final yank, the king rips the last cord out of the data box. There's no going back now. After all this time and all this work, the permanency of the situation suddenly hits him with that last yank. He gives the safety line two brief jerks. As his assistant pulls him into the world of Sugar Rush, the king looks back at the data box labeled "Vanellope von Schweetz," sitting out there alone, isolated, and unattached. He steps back onto solid ground and quickly shuts the door to the code room, not wanting to see that sight anymore.

As the king and the little green sphere walk down the hall, there is silence. He runs through a brief mental checklist, to ensure that there's no crack in his plan. Her data was cut off? Check. The citizens' memories - along with the other racers' - locked up? Check. No hope of going back? Check. It's over. And the king is walking down the luminescent hallway, back to the throne room, as if nothing had happened. That's part of the plan, too, right? Check. Make sure nobody knows, and make sure everything's running smoothly, as if this whole ordeal never existed. Nobody will notice, hopefully, and nobody will care. The only one who fully knows is the king, and he... well...

"Sour Bill," the candied monarch speaks "leave me. I want some time by myself." His assistant scampers off, doing as he's told. As the door in the back shuts, its echo reverberating off the castle walls, the king finally gets some time to let it all soak in. Here he is, in a grand palace, the whole game under his control, and she's out there somewhere, in the far reaches of the land, nothing more than a... "Nothing more than a glitch in the code."

The thought punches him right in the gut. Nobody should have to do what he did. But he leaped at the opportunity. What's that say about him? What's that say about someone who would do that to a _child? _Much less...

The king can't take it. Hands across his face, his head sinks down and he begins crying. He didn't think he'd find himself doing this, not in a thousand years, but here he is. He's actually crying. Softly, his sobs bounce off the halls of the castle. They are the only company he has as they return back to their father, providing some sort of solace. He did what he had to do, right?

Right.

And that's the hardest part about being a king. It's doing what's right. No matter what.


	2. Chapter 2

As the chocolate road blurs by, smearing the colors of the gumdrop mounds into wet lines of red, yellow, and pink, the king's thoughts rush through his head in a similar fashion. Ever since Ralph showed up, things have gone from bad to worse. He game jumped, allowed Vanellope to enter in the race, actually made her a car, and now the Random Roster Race is minutes away. So many things are about to go wrong, and so many problems are about to shoot up, and - of course - who has to deal with them? The king. It's his duty.

He makes a sharp turn, heading towards Diet Cola mountain. It's where he last saw Ralph and the glitch. They'll be here. Or, at least, Ralph better be. And sure enough, there he is, staring back at the mountain and standing next to the car he and Vanellope made. The king has to choke back a sob when he sees their names on the side of the car. Oh, if only there were any other way. But there isn't. Okay, time to reason with the wrecker. It's his only shot. King Candy masks his regret with his usual goofy smile. With a honk of the horn, he steps out of the car, greeting the red-clothed giant. Said giant is less than pleased to see him. After a brief panic and scuffle, Wreck-it-Ralph has the king by the shirt, anger boiling in his eyes and gritted teeth punctuating the hostile air.

"I don't want to hear anything you have to say," the hulking giant snarls at King Candy.

"Well, what about this?" The King desperately replies, holding out Ralph's medal. "Would you be interested in this?" The shock overwhelms Ralph and he puts the king down, perplexed at how the king could have gotten the medal. Of course, it doesn't matter how, really, as long as he takes the bait. For the love of all that is holy, please just take the medal. "All I ask is that you hear me out. Sad as it is... Vanellope can't be allowed to race."

_"Why are you people so against her?!"_ Ralph yells.

_'I'd love to tell you the truth, but you wouldn't particularly like that,' _The king thinks to himself. "I'm not against her! I'm only doing what's best for her!" King Candy launches into his made up explanation about her being a glitch and the game getting shut down and her being trapped. It's a load of hogwash, but the truth of the matter is even worse than that, and... well...

_'And she really would die. But it's worse than that, Ralph. I'm sugar-coating it for you, big guy. I know you love that little girl...'_

"I'll leave you two alone," The king says, before hopping in his car and driving off. In the back of his mind, he finishes his thought as he heads to the Random Roster Race, acting like everything's normal. Acting like nothing's wrong. _'If you found out the truth, Ralph, you'd be crushed. She's become like a daughter to you. It's ironic, really, and if she crosses that finish line, everything I've done to keep her and this game safe will be undone, and the truth will be shown. And you, Ralph, would be absolutely crushed.'_ He makes a sharp turn, the chocolate dust kicking up behind his royal white racer as he speeds off to the race.

The hardest part about being a king is doing what's right, no matter what. The second hardest part is dealing with those who don't listen when you tell them what to do, even when it's for their own good. Take Ralph, for example, when Vanellope comes running out of the mountain. He smiles, secretly drops the Hero's Duty medal, gives Vanellope a hug, and the two drive off to the Random Roster race. In the dirt, King Candy's final offer lies covered in chocolate powder, forgotten and lost. Ralph didn't listen to him.

That's probably the second hardest part about being a king.


	3. Chapter 3

Panic looms up and crashes over King Candy. All at once, every possible bad thing that could happen flashes before his mind, and not a single one allows any room for hope. There, zooming right past him with an all-too-familiar smile of determination, is Vanellope von Schweetz. Her custom-built car swerves in front of the king, spraying snow all over him as the pint-sized glitch advances into first place. Ralph didn't listen. _Of course he didn't listen._ And now who's going to have to clean up his mess? The king. Again.

The royal racer looks right and sees the shortcut. It's one he discovered long ago, and it leads right to the finish line. He's never used it, because using it disqualifies the racer from the race, but quite frankly the race is the last thing on his mind right now. Steering to the right and flinging his car through the flimsy barrier, King Candy barrels down the shortcut, making a beeline for the end of the race. Perhaps he can stop this before it begins. After only a few seconds of driving, he finds himself appearing out of nowhere and flinging across the finish line.

_"Cheater, Cheater, Veggie Eater!" _The announcer declares _"King Candy has been disqualified!"_

Amidst shocked gasps from the crowd and the murmurers of confusion, the king picks up on Ralph's voice saying "But that's not like her, Felix!" Sympathy and compassion can wait. King Candy stomps out of his car, locks on to Ralph, takes off his helmet, and promptly smacks the big guy in the head with it.

"Wreck-it-Ralph, _you big, bad-breathed, backstabbing BUFFOON!"_

The giant looks down at him, taken aback and confused beyond belief. "Whaddya mean?" He asks. Of course, now the king has to put everything on hold and just waste precious time explaining things when _really_ he should be focused on _stopping that glitch from crossing the line! _Grabbing Ralph by the collar and yanking him down, the King ignores his bad breath long enough to spout off. "I don't have time to explain, you nitwit! You are going to _wreck_ that finish line, and _you are going to do it now, or __**we are all going to die!"**_

_"How are we going to die? What's wrong with her winning the race?"_

King Candy glances up at the jumbo-tron, looking at the rankings, not surprised at the horror he's seeing. All of the other racers are no longer on the track, Vanellope's the last one in the race, and she's seconds away from ripping past the finished line. "Ralph," the king says without looking away "Did you notice her blowing the other racers off of the tracks earlier?"

"Well, yeah, but isn't that part of the race?"

"It is, if they happen to be in your way, but did she go out of her way to make sure she was the only one on the track?"

"...Uh, yeah, I guess... Actually, I was just talking to Felix about that, and-"

_Smack! _Before the wrecker can say anything else, a tall, angry, militant woman smashes her helmet across his face. "I hope you're happy, junkpile. This game is going down, and it's _all your fault!" _The rest of the conversation is lost on King Candy. He gulps and a loud engine forces him to turn his head. He looks on in terror at the finish line. Glitching uncontrollably, with an increasingly obsessive look on her face, and an all-too-toothy grin, Vanellope shoots across the finish line. Stepping out of the car, she glitches some more. Sour Bill comes trotting up to King Candy. It looks like he's about to inform his ruler of something, when he suddenly freezes. The little green ball lets out a gasp of horror as his memory is unlocked.

Well, there goes the neighborhood.

"...that CyBug you brought with you multiplied!" The military woman finishes saying.

"No," Ralph replies "It died in the Taffy Swamp, believe me-" He's interrupted by an explosion, and all sorts of madness envelopes Sugar Rush all at once.

You know, it's funny. You'd think that billions of giant candy bugs swarming everywhere and ruining everything would be the main thing that gets your attention at a time like this. You'd think that Ralph would go right to fighting them off immediately. You'd think there would be more of an urge to panic. But none of that happens. Heck, Ralph, Felix, King Candy, and even Sargent Calhoun are - momentarily - too shocked to notice the swarms of monstrous insects ravaging the land.

Why?

Because, standing where Vanellope used to be, is a grey-skinned, yellow-toothed maniac in a white and red racing uniform.

Again, there goes the neighborhood.


	4. Chapter 4

There was some debate in the past over exactly how Vanellope's code came to be, but various clues and hints in the data allowed King Candy to piece together a relatively complete picture. It may not be exact, but this was his best guess.

According to his programmed back story, brief as it is, King Candy was supposed to have a daughter. For some reason - call it rushed production, import problems, or maybe even physical damage to this copy of Sugar Rush - she didn't exist. When Sugar Rush was first plugged in, King Candy knew that something was missing, and he felt it had something to do with him. This "emptiness" gnawed at him tirelessly, getting more anxious with every passing day. Eventually, he took a look at the code, a long look. Sure enough, there were fragments of data here and there. Mentions of Vanellope and her relationship to other racers, pieces of information about what she would have looked like. What started as a glance became a habit, and King Candy found himself rushing over to the code after each day of racing, tinkering with small objects like rocks or bushes or trees, and learning how the code worked, trying harder and harder to find out about his daughter who never was. A loneliness was growing inside him, and each passing day made him more and more desperate to bring to life her.

Then, for the first time, he saw it. Drifting lazily through the void of the data room, an empty, un-wired box labeled "Vanellope von Schweetz" greeted his eyes, and the king's heart skipped a beat. He had all the information he needed, but he wasn't skilled enough in coding to make it work. Right there was the empty canister, ready to be filled, but there wasn't a thing he could do about it.

Enter Turbo.

Now, King Candy hadn't paid much attention to other games in the arcade, so he wasn't really sure where Turbo came from, or how he found his way into Sugar Rush. All he knew is that Turbo was a homeless racer, and that he knew a lot about game codes. He and the king struck a deal. King Candy would allow Turbo to encode himself as a racer on the condition that he would help King Candy bring Vanellope to life. Of course, Turbo eagerly accepted the deal. Looking back on it, this probably was a dead giveaway of his intentions, but King Candy didn't see that at the time. All he saw was someone who could give him what he wanted, and that was good enough.

Each day after the races, and even _during_ the races on a few days when he wasn't on the random roster, King Candy labored tirelessly, with Turbo instructing him and working alongside him, putting a piece of code here, copying some numbers there, and filling in the formerly hollow data box labeled "Vanellope von Schweetz." Then, one day, she appeared, standing in the middle of the throne room, a blank look on her face and a frozen posture. King Candy hugged her, overcome with tears of happiness. She wasn't alive yet - it was just her character model, basically an empty statue that needed filling - but she was his daughter, and she'd finally be united with him, the way things should be.

Turbo had other plans.

King Candy had failed to notice Turbo's comments on how cute Vanellope was, or how she would turn out to be really popular. Oh, granted, the king agreed with every compliment Turbo paid, but the way he said it... It was as if he was talking about himself. Hindsight's 20/20. King Candy should have locked Turbo up then and there. But he didn't. That very evening, King Candy found Turbo messing with Vanellope's code. There was a slight problem with it, though. He was jumpy. He was nervous. He was acting very anxious. Before King Candy could ask what he was up to, the unthinkable happened. Zap! Turbo turned into Vanellope.

What exactly happened is pretty confusing. To put it simply: Turbo was "wearing" Vanellope's code so that he could pass as a racer. Like a parasite, he latched onto her data and planned to use her to gain the attention he wanted. You see, Vanellope was complete. She came alive the second Turbo added one more strand of code to her, but her enjoyment of life was very short-lived. The instant she was alive, Turbo inserted his own code and took control of the princess of Sugar Rush.

With a heavy heart after a large fight, King Candy managed to get himself alone in the code room with the police chasing "Vanellope" all over Sugar Rush. He leaped at his opportunity, and yanked out all of her wires, separating her from the rest of the game, and - as a result - nullifying Turbo's threat. He locked up all the memory but his own, preventing any uprising, and made sure that Vanellope would remain an outcast. She wouldn't know any better, and Turbo would remain dormant as long as Vanellope didn't race. It broke the king's heart. Nobody should have to do that to their own child. Nobody. But he did. And there was a monster inside of her, a monster that would remain asleep as long as Vanellope didn't do the one thing she was programmed to do the best: race.

It's really hard, being the king. You have to do the right thing, no matter what.


	5. Chapter 5

When King Candy finishes relating his tale to the others, everyone is officially caught up. This does not change their unfortunate situation, however. King Candy, Fix-it-Felix, Jr., Sargent Calhoun, and Wreck-it-Ralph are all holed up inside the candy castle. When the initial shock of Vanellope actually being Turbo wore off, Calhoun reacted instinctively and made the move she thought best. In an inhumanly quick amount of time, all the citizens of Sugar Rush were evacuated, the entrance to the game was destroyed, and the four characters were trapped inside with an ever-increasing amount of CyBugs. Of course, their impending, inevitable deaths allowed them to finally catch each other up with all the necessary details. Not that that made anything more cheerful. It's just nice knowing what's going on exactly.

Ralph isn't taking the news about Vanellope too well. "So this whole time, I was friends with _Turbo?! I helped __**him?" **_The giant says through a cracking voice, fists clenched. "_Vanellope was just a lie?!"_

"Well, in answer to those questions," the king replies, trying to console Ralph while still maintaining the truth "No, yes, and no. You were with _Vanellope_ this whole time. Turbo basically 'woke up' when Vanellope started racing, and now they're glitching back and forth between Turbo and Vanellope. Does... does that make sense?"

"Oh yeah," Ralph sarcastically replies "About as much sense as some _maniac_ _making his __**own daughter**__ a glitch and an outcast! How could you **do that to**_** her?"** Losing control of his rage, he smashes a fist right into King Candy, who goes flying backwards into his throne._  
_

"Ralph!" Fix-it-Felix interrupts with shock.

"You know what?" King Candy responds, sitting up "He's right. I should have known better." The king slumps down on his throne, defeated by everything around him. He tried to do what's right, and he failed. "I shouldn't have... let that monster help. I should have known better than to trust him. When I did what I did, believe me when I say I did not enjoy it. But at this point, it doesn't matter. Vanellope's _gone_, Ralph. She died when Turbo came back. All that's left is a trace of her code, floating around somewhere in there." He motions to the code room behind him. "Even if it is still attached to her character's box, it's useless. Turbo's in charge again, and he is _not _Vanellope." The words hang in the air, settling on everyone slowly. The king continues his talk. "Ralph, you became more of a father to her than I could ever be. If she came back, she'd remember me as the tyrant that pushed her away, and she'd remember you as the only one who treated her well..._"_

A large bang hits the castle wall, reminding them of the swarm trying to break in and devour them. Suddenly, something clicks deep inside Ralph's mind, and a look of sudden clarity wipes across the giant's face. "I've got it! Lady, what was it you said about a beacon?"

"That's the only thing that will stop them, but I don't see how-"

"Give me your hover board. I've got some wrecking to do!" Before anyone can utter a word of protest, Ralph's on the hoverboard and heading straight to Diet Cola Mountain. Of course, they would have been better off had he not broke a giant hole in the wall to get there.

"Hey, there's a _door!" _King Candy angrily shouts after him. Hundreds if not thousands of CyBugs lock right on to the new entrance and come pouring in like a plague. Calhoun immediately opens up on them. Between flashes of light as bullets riddle the invaders, she tells Felix and King Candy to stay behind her. But her warning isn't heard by King Candy, who suddenly feels a fire roaring inside him at the sight of all the bugs. Knowing that his daughter is somewhere out there, hijacked by a maniac, rage boils in his digital veins, and no amount of CyBugs, bullets, or psychotic racers are going to get between him and Vanellope. The king wastes no time in running straight into the code room and tying a rope around himself. When he's sure it's secured to the wall, King Candy dives straight into the tangle of wires and boxes. He quickly finds and grabs onto Vanellope's code box. The name on it is glitching and flashing rapidly between"Turbo" and "Vanellope von Schweetz."

No time to lose.

Swiftly, the king double taps it and it opens up, revealing a nightmarish tangle of blue and red coding, fighting itself and struggling for control over the box. Just when he's about to start untangling this mess, the whole code freaks out, blinding him for a moment with a bright green light. As his senses slowly return, he hears a horrified scream of "Oh my land!" and a very dark, giggling laugh. When his vision fades back in, he sees a viral stain of green code mixed in with the red and blue, now pulsating in a violent conniption of electricity. Three codes from three games, and only one of them is his daughter's. The red is obviously Turbo's... So where'd the green...

"Oh no."

"Oh yes," a dark voice interrupts him. The king turns around and freezes in shock, mouth agape. Standing in the entrance to the code room is a CyBug... but not. Well, it has the body of a CyBug, with its rapidly flapping wings, and the underbelly is a light green mass of twitching appendages. But that's not the horrible part. Its face is that of Turbo... and then it's Vanellope's... and then it's Turbo's again. Spastically, the creatures features jolt between twisted mockeries of the two racers. Still, the dominant personality is Turbo's. No matter which face it lands on, Turbo is the one talking, albeit sometimes in his voice, sometimes in Vanellope's.

"Well, look at me, king, or should I say..." The face flashes briefly to Vanellope's, and it blinks childishly, holding its hands up to its chin, mocking the king "_Daaadyyy..._ Hehehehahaha!" King Candy scowls, the creature's taunting having jolted him out of his shock. "Thanks to that ham-fisted idiot, I'm the most **powerful** **VIRUS **in the arcade! But what's this?" Back to Vanellope. "_Daddyyy_... why are you messing with my_ cooooode?_ _That's not very-" _Turbo again. "-_NICE OF YOU!"_

The monstrosity lunges at the king, diving straight for him. Reacting quickly, he pushes himself upward and floats higher into the room. The viral abomination gives chase, grinning ear to ear with horrific sadism. "Come back! I'm still trying to kill you!"

The brawl goes on for a little longer, with a flurry of insectoid limbs whirring their way around and after King Candy, who barely manages to outmaneuver the CyBug. There's the thing about it, though; it's still a bug. So it doesn't really think things through. It didn't think how dangerous it is to go hovering around the game's code and slashing all those pointy appendages around, for instance. It also didn't think of how dangerous it is to be a big bug in a mess of wires and electricity. King Candy had thought of this, however.

Soon, the giant monstrosity is tangled in the cords, being painfully shocked and zapped by the electricity as it shoots down the lines, buying King Candy time.

Just enough time.

The king shoots down to the code for Vanellope and re-opens it. Frantically, he identifies every scrap of blue he can and untangles it from the others, delicately placing each piece in his pocket. When it's all done, all that's left is CyBug and Turbo. **"STOP THAT! STOP MESSING WITH _MY_ CODE!" **The king looks up above him. Turbo's face is contorted into an image of pure, unfiltered rage. **"CANDY, I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!"**

Now, bravery shouldn't overrule common sense. King Candy sees the bug frantically cutting apart random wires and busting his way out. Naturally, the ruler of Sugar Rush pulls himself up his safety line like a spider climbing its web, scared and nervous. Within an instant, the big, bad, bug is free and King Candy is running down the hall into Candy Castle's throne room._  
_

Calhoun and Felix are backed into a corner, surrounded by the monsters. The castle is all but gone completely, and the ground has become a writhing mass of CyBugs. King Candy ducks down and covers his head as the TurboBug flings itself over his head. Quickly spinning around and regaining traction, it dives right back to him, picking him up by the throat. **"GAME OVER, CANDY MAN!"** Just when the monster leans a sharp talon back to finish him off, a bright explosion catches its attention.

Hypnotically, every single bug in the land stops and looks at the beacon of light exploding from Diet Cola Mountain. Faintly, Ralph's figure can be seen leaping off of it and falling down its side as the CyBugs all drift their way toward the beam of exploding soda. Even Turbo isn't immune to his code's weakness, and finds himself dropping King Candy onto the ground and heading on a straight course to his demise.

A few seconds later, everything is silent.

Just like that, it's all over.

And you know what? For once, it was easy to do what's right. Well, maybe not _physically_ easy, but the choice was clear.

Even the hard parts about being a king can be easy sometimes.


	6. Chapter 6

Well, it's the next day at the arcade, and - fortunately for all involved - once Felix was able to fix the entrance to Sugar Rush and help King Candy repair the game's code, everything was back to normal. The gameplay went on as expected. Fix-it-Felix, Jr. resumed being fully operational. All is well that ends well... But not all is well. King Candy is standing in the entrance to the code room, Sour Bill holding on to his life line. In the ruler's hand is a bag filled with all of Vanellope's codes. He breathes out a heavy sigh. "Well, I sure hope I paid enough attention to Turbo's instructions." He steps off into the blackness and swims up to the repaired code of Sugar Rush. Wires and boxes are glowing with life, but one box is turned off. It's floating on its own. It's separate from the rest. As he floats over to it, he notices the yellow name of "Vanellope Von Schweetz" is faintly covered with charred edges and slight burns on it. Evidence of the struggle from yesterday. Hesitantly, he double taps it and opens the box up. Of course, it's empty, but not for long.

Gradually, he places Vanellope's codes in their proper places. A name here. An article of clothing there. Some personality traits there. A series of numbers after that. The process goes on for hours as he makes sure _each _and _every_ detail is right where it belongs, occasionally heading over to his box and reviewing his memory bank to see how he originally inserted certain pieces of code. After an incalculable amount of time passes, King Candy comes to the final part of restoring his daughter. From the back, he can hear Sour Bill say "Sir, her character model is in the throne room now." The king looks down at what's left in his hands; a data bank. Memory. Not the overall memory stored with the racers, but her personal memory that got separated from the rest when Turbo took over. Gingerly, the king places the data bank in her code, and is about to activate her. His finger pauses, however, and instead wanders to the data bank.

With a double tap, it opens up. King Candy is free to browse his daughter's memories of being an outcast. The first one is of police viciously chasing her down, while she wonders where she is and why she's running. This must have been when the memory bank was locked. Next memory. King Candy officially proclaiming her a criminal as she secretly watches from the back of the crowd. Next memory. The other racers, beating her up one day when they found her eyeballing a race car, saying that King Candy knows she's just a glitch, and no good. Memory after memory of horrible, mean things come up. Of course, there is the occasional unimportant moment or casual event, but the ones that stand out, the ones that matter, are all of King Candy persecuting her. Each one is like another stab in his gut when he sees it.

At long last, he comes to the good memories. It all starts with Ralph, and with an inverse pattern, they get increasingly better and better. Ralph helps her make a car. Next memory. Ralph signs the car with her. Next memory. He teaches her how to drive. Next memory... she's making a medal... obviously, it's for Ralph... _'You are My Hero'_ "And King Candy was the villain," the old monarch mumbles to himself. When she wakes up, she'll treat him like an enemy. She has no reason to see him as anything else. King Candy sighs in despair. As he does this, his eyes move down and something catches his attention.

There is a blank memory slot which says "Insert New Memory." A sliver - just a sliver - of hope is planted in King Candy as he sees those words. Without a second's hesitation, he double taps the slot. A holographic keyboard appears in front of him, its blue light glowing and splashing all over the ruler. He's... He's not going to manufacture a memory. But he is going to leave a message. His fingers magnetically draw themselves to the keyboard and he types.

"Vanellope, this is King Candy. I know that name leaves a bad taste in your mouth and a scowl on your face. Before you hate me, there's something I want you to know..." He types and types and types, explaining all the necessary things, telling her about Turbo's manipulation, about the data box, about everything. Then he tells her how much he dreamed of her. He tells her how much he wanted to have her as a daughter. He spills his guts out and exposes everything to her, not hiding a single thing. After that's done, he presses the "Save" button and the box shuts. Then, with two final taps, he activates Vanellope. Hesitantly he waits, listening for Sour Bill. At long last...

"Sire, she's awake!"

He gives the safety line two jerks, and he's pulled back into the castle. As he walks down the hall into the throne room, he asks Sour Bill to give them some time alone. The servant obliges, and leaves the room as soon as he's in. As King Candy steps in, he sees Vanellope, his daughter, sheepishly looking at the ground.

"Vanellope?" He asks.

She looks up at him, tears in her eyes. "D-D-Daddy?" After a moment where the words hang in the air, she runs forward and leaps into her father's warm embrace.

* * *

**Obligatory Closing Statement: Well, did you like it? Did you hate it? If so, then why? I love feedback, as it helps me see where I need improvement and where I can hone the skill God has blessed me with.**

**Now, I suppose I'd like to share some commentary with you on the story itself. The idea came about - like I said - in the form of "What if?" Specifically, when I was watching Wreck-it-Ralph, I thought to myself, "Well, I didn't expect _King Candy_ to be _Turbo_ this whole time, but I knew for a fact it wouldn't be _Vanellope_. After all, she's the cute little girl, and in practically every single movie or story, the cute little girl is always the good guy. Hey... what if she _was _Turbo? What if that's why King Candy was keeping her oppressed?" You can see where the idea sort of grew from there, and when I got snowed in, it provided the perfect opportunity to write this story.**

**Unfortunately, I don't like the way it turned out. Oh, sure, the plot line is good and the characterization is - I think - pretty solid (barring a few lines here or there that sound out of character), but my main quip with this is its pacing and atmosphere. I feel like this story was too rushed. In fact, I know it's too rushed, because I just wanted to create a cute little story over the course of a few days. This being said, I do plan on "polishing" it later on, after I get more reviews and after I spend a good chunk of time away from it.**

**Anyhoo, what else? Oh yeah. Wreck-it-Ralph is (C) Disney, which I am unaffiliated with. I think that wraps everything up. Have a nice day.**


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